This blog is about learning to take a close look at your thoughts, feelings, responses, and reactions to find better and more effective ways to resolve conflicts, lead teams, and clearly communicate to build and maintain both professional and personal relationships...[Read More]

How to Take Charge of Your Life – General Principles

Last week, I listened to a speaker talk about the necessity of becoming clear on your purpose if you want to achieve success. It was a message that resonated with me, and it triggered some thoughts about my business and my relationships.

As I reflected on what he had to say and I considered some of the questions I receive in workshops, seminars, teleseminars, and coaching calls, I realized that part of what I hope to accomplish with my work is to help people get free of thoughts, attitudes, and behaviors that trap them in bad situations — bad work relationships, bad personal relationships, bad partnerships, etc.

So, I’m starting a series of articles targeted at specific things you can do to take charge of your life. I haven’t mapped out a detailed plan at this point. The series might be 6 articles or 16. I don’t know right now. I’m just going to write them and keep adding to the series until it is finished.

The general principles that come to mind as I start are:

Control what you can

Influence who you can

Forget about the things and people you can neither control nor influence

Stay focused on what you can do rather than what you can’t do

Take responsibility for your situation.

I might think of some others as the series progresses. I would certainly be open to input on what to include on this list. Please let me know if you see a core, guiding principle for taking charge of your life that I missed.

The general principles are sort of like the airplane control panel in the picture above. They give you a way of looking at and evaluating your life to see what you either need or want to change. I’ll be exploring each of them individually and some related ideas in future articles. I hope you’ll stop by again and check the series out as it unfolds.

Comments

Thanks – I think you’ve got a great list started there! I have a couple to add to your list that have really helped me
– get really clear on what’s important to you in life and what isn’t
– “you don’t regret the things you do…you regret the things you don’t do”